Certain commercial appliances, such as washing machines and clothes dryers at a laundry mat, might have cash-based operating systems that require a user to input cash or coins into the appliance before an operating cycle will begin. Such pay-per-use commercial appliances typically have low-end or very basic operating features. In addition, the owner of the appliance or business typically must deal with large amounts of small cash payments.
By contrast, conventional residential appliances are typically capable of performing standard operating cycles immediately after being removed from packaging and supplied with power. Purchasers of such residential appliance typically make an up front cash or credit payment for such appliances. Notably, given the rise of shared living arrangements, home rental services, and other shared appliance situations, a purchaser of a residential appliance may wish to recoup the costs of their investment. For example, a homeowner who rents their house on a rental website might wish to charge renters for their use of the appliance, a tenant who purchases an appliance may wish to charge their roommates for appliance use, or an appliance owner may wish to generate a revenue steam from owned appliances in other situations as well.
Accordingly, systems and methods enabling a residential appliance owner to charge users of the appliance would be desirable. More specifically, a payment management system that may take non-cash payments to authorize cycle-by-cycle operation of an appliance would be particularly beneficial.